Consumer Reports rates doctors; "old people smell" is real - USA TODAY

Your Thursday morning health roundup:

• Doctor ratings: Consumer Reports, best known for rating cars, appliances and other products, is getting into the business of rating primary care doctors. Subscribers in Massachusetts are about to get a 25-page insert rating 500 adult, family and pediatric practices in the state. Minnesota and Wisconsin will be next. The ratings are drawn from patient surveys, not the random reviews used on most doctor-rating web sites, the magazine says.
• Sickening chicks: An eight-year, multi-state outbreak of salmonella that sickened at least 316 people -- and probably thousands more -- was linked to one hatchery that shipped baby chicks nationwide, a new report says. That outbreak is over and the hatchery has cleaned up its act, but the report is a reminder that you don't have to eat a chicken to get sick from it, experts say. Most victims were children under age five who handled the birds.
• Exercise risk? Exercise is an indisputable elixir of health. Or is it? A new report raises the possibility that a minority of people who take up moderate to intense exercise may see increases in certain measures of heart risk, such as blood pressure and cholesterol numbers. The risk, if real, seems to affect fewer than 10 percent of people, the New York Times reports.
• Sweet news: High fructose corn syrup will not get a new name. The stuff that makes many sodas and processed foods sweet cannot be called "corn sweetener" on labels, the Food and Drug Administration says. Meanwhile, those sodas and other sweetened drinks may be about to go on a diet in New York City: Super-sized sweet drinks could be banned at restaurants, delis, sport venues and street carts under a plan announced Wednesday.

Today's talker: Yes, there really is such a thing as "old people smell." But at least it's more pleasant than "middle-aged man smell," say researchers who had volunteers sniff underarm pads worn for several nights by people of various ages. The volunteers were able to sort the pads by age and were most accurate at picking out those worn by the oldest people. When asked whether the samples created unpleasant odors, the volunteers overwhelmingly gave a stinky thumbs-down to those worn by middle-aged men. And they said middle-aged women smelled best.